The father of an Iranian journalist who was abducted in Iraq in 2019, taken to Iran and hanged has accused former president Hassan Rouhani and another top official of playing the main role in his death.
Mohammad Ali Zam, a cleric and father of Ruhollah Zam wrote in a post on Instagram the Supreme National Security Council headed by Rouhani and Ali Shamkhani had formed a “special commission” to pursue his son and destroy him. He has alleged that the commission was made of liaisons from 9-12 different entities.
Ruhollah Zam, who left Iran and was living in France was a dissident journalist who relentlessly worked to reveal the inner workings of the Islamic Republic and was in charge of Amad News.
He was lured to Iraq by two individuals, that his father named, and was kidnapped by Iran’s secret services and taken to Iran. After interrogations and possibly torture he was hanged in December 2020.
Authorities accused Zam of spying for Israel and France and “cooperation with the hostile US government”. He was also accused of “collecting information to share with others,” and a host of other general and vague infringements.
A former foreign detainee in Iran has told Iranian expats not to be tricked by the foreign minister claiming to guarantee their safety if they visit the country.
Nizar Zakka, a Lebanese citizen, and a US permanent resident spent four years in Iranian prisons on vague charges of espionage for the United States and was released in June 2019 after an appeal by Lebanese President Michelle Aoun.
He responded to a statement by Amir-Abdollahian saying that if expat Iranians want to visit the country, the foreign ministry can tell them if they have any legal issues and once cleared, they have nothing to fear about.
Zakka tweeted, “What are the guarantees, and from whom? You? What about foreigners? You were at the foreign ministry when your gov invited and kidnapped me.”
Zakkawas invited to Iran in 2016 by a top official of former president Hassan Rouhani’s government, but once he was arrested and jailed by the Revolutionary Guard the official said there was complete lack of coordination between the government and security forces.
Iran has arrested many dual nationals who have visited the country and used them as bargaining chips against Western countries, according to human rights organizations.
Some hardline media in Iran have called the Iran Atrocities Tribunal, held in London last week, a British stunt to shift attention from £400 million owed Iran.
Others say the United States or Zionists had set up a theatrical show, but it appears the event had enough impact on public opinion that Iran’s hardliners chose to react.
The Tribunal convened on the anniversary of the 2019 protests to “investigate atrocities” and “human rights violations by Iran” during the protests in Iran when hundreds of people were killed by security forces and more than 8,000 jailed.
"It appears that finding the payment of its debt to Iran challenging, Britain is trying to divert attention and wants to get the upper hand through media spectacles and allegedly independent international institutions," Raja News reported Monday.
Britain owes Iran £400 million (around $540 million) for tanks sold to Iran more than four decades ago but never delivered. Richard Ratcliffe, husband of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe who served four years in prison for ‘espionage’ says his wife, who is not allowed to leave Iran, has been taken ‘hostage’ to secure payment, which was ordered in 2001 by an international court.
Javan newspaper, which is affiliated to the Revolutionary Guards, saw the tribunal as a "puppet show" launched by "the White House media circle and escapees of the 2009 sedition." Some of the tribunals’ organizers left Iran following protests after the disputed 2009 presidential election, and among witnesses called was Masih Alinejad, a prominent US-based women’s rights defender and opponent of the Islamic Republic.
Javan said the US had organized anti-revolutionary "nuclei" to incite unrest and sedition months before protests in 2019.
Fars news agency, also affiliated to the IRGC, said the tribunal was a "ridiculous show" with the involvement of "infamous Zionists." It suggested Thursday that the organizers sought to generate excuses to the European Union and the US to impose sanctions on Iran.
According to Iran Wire, a report was submitted in advance of the tribunal to the International Criminal Court, to which Iran, like the US, is not a party. The ‘verdict’ of the tribunal, held in London 10-14 November, will be symbolic.
Organizers have referred to "paramount evidence on grave human rights violations" in previous investigations by the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in Iran, the UN Secretary General, and organizations such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Justice for Iran, and Iran Human Rights.
Media affiliated with Iran’s hardliners have questioned the purpose of the tribunal and the extensive coverage from foreign Persian-language media, especially Iran International TV, which relayed proceedings live. "What is the theatrical show of Aban Tribunal in London supposed to achieve?” a journalist who reflects hardliner views, Kobra Asoupar tweeted Tuesday.
Asoupar wrote in her tweet that the tribunal sought Iran's condemnation, confiscation of its assets, intensification of sanctions and international pressure, and payment of compensation to plaintiffs "from the pockets of the Iranian people," presumably from frozen Iranian assets. She added that Alinejad "filled her pockets with Americans’ rewards," apparently a reference to her work for media outlets funded by the United States.
Telling the truth is a crime in Iran, says journalist Mohammad Mosaed, winner of the 2020 press freedom award of the US-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).
Mosaed received his award Thursday at a ceremony in New York City after one year's delay now that he is safely out of Iran and living in the US, which CPJ says has played a “powerful role…historically in supporting press freedom around the world.”
In a video-taped speech, Mosaed identified "just a few examples of the countless sufferings of Iranians” in missiles shooting down a Ukrainian passenger plane in 2020; the killing of hundreds of protesters in 2019; economic crisis and corruption; and Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei ruling against the import of US- and British-made vaccines.
"The crucial point about each of these catastrophes is that we were never properly made aware of their dimensions," Mosaed said. "Speaking the truth is dangerous in my country because the government fears not only the truth itself but also the audacity behind telling the truth and this has turned speaking the truth into a crime in my country."
Mosaed was unable to receive his award last year as he had fled to Turkey to seek asylum.He was detained by Turkish authorities in January and faced the possibility of extradition to Iran.
"At that time he was in danger and could not speak to us openly," Yeganeh Rezaian (Salehi), an Iranian journalist who has worked for Bloomberg and the Abu-Dhabi owned National newspaper. Rezaian was arrested along with her American-Iranian journalist husband Jason Rezaian in 2014 and spent months in Evin prison, Tehran.
"Being summoned to serve more than four years in prison for the crime of exposing financial corruption, Mohammad fled Iran for neighboring Turkey,” she told ICJ. “There he faced the prospect of being sent back. Thanks to CPJ and others, Mohammad is safe.”
In his speech Mosaed criticized the Iranian government for "increasingly cracking down on domestic and foreign journalists, by expelling, exiling, persecution of their families, and widespread propaganda."
Mosaed was arrested in 2019 after posts on Twitter about an internet shutdown. “Knock Even! Hello Free World!" he tweeted in English, adding that he had used 42 different proxies to find a way to post. "Millions of Iranians don't have the internet. Can you hear us?”
He was then released and subsequently detained after he had criticized the government over management of the Covid pandemic. In September 2020 Mosaed was sentenced by a Revolutionary Court to four years and nine months in prison on security and propaganda charges, and banned from journalism and using communications devices for two years.
Iran said Thursday that Canada must "stop systematic policy on killing indigenous people" after the UN passed a Canadian-sponsored resolution censuring Iran for serious rights abuses.
Saeed Khatibzadeh, the foreign ministry spokesman, said Thursday that the resolution by the General Assembly's Third Committee was "based on weak and scattered international votes" and alleged that many countries voting in favor had been subject to "various political pressures and threats".
The spokesman called on Canada to accept responsibility for its complicity in Israeli “crimes against humanity against the Palestinian people.”
Iran often responds to allegations of human rights abuse by claiming the double standards of the accuser. When asked in June about his role in the 1988 prison executions in Iran, President Ebrahim Raisi (Raeesi) accused the Mujahideen-e Khalq of violence, the opposition group whose members made up the bulk of those executed in 1988.
Human Rights Watch recently said the Canadian government, which refuses to accept the International Criminal Court considering alleged Israel crimes in occupied territory, supported “draconian military rule over Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.”
The resolution by UN Thrid Committee on Iran expressed concern at the “alarmingly high frequency" of the imposition and carrying-out of the death penalty, including executions based on forced confessions or for crimes that do not qualify as the most serious crimes, were overly broad or vaguely defined. It passed at the UN General Assembly committee Wednesday 79-32, with 64 abstentions. The Iranian representative successfully requested a recorded vote.
The General Assembly allocates to its Social, Humanitarian and Cultural Affairs Committee, commonly referred to as the "Third Committee", agenda items relating to a range of social, humanitarian affairs and human rights issues that affect people all over the world.
The MEK immediately called for “the clerical regime, including [Supreme Leader] Ali Khamenei, Ebrahim Raisi, and Gholam-Hossain Mohseni Ejeii [the judiciary chief],” to be “prosecuted by international tribunals.”
Torture and cruel treatment
The resolution expressed serious concern at the imposition of the death penalty against those under 18 at the time of the offence. "Torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment," which the resolution said could include sexual violence, were also highlighted.
The resolution called for the release of anyone detained for exercising human rights and fundamental freedoms, including anyone detained solely over peaceful protests, including any in November 2019 and January 2020.
Iran was urged to "end reprisals against human rights defenders, peaceful protesters and their families, journalists and media workers covering the protests, and individuals who cooperate or attempt to cooperate with the United Nations human rights mechanisms."
Truth and reconciliation
Zahra Ershadi, Iran's ambassador and deputy permanent representative to the United Nations, in a statement read to the UN Third Committee, called the resolution "insincere and indefensible political." She said it “replete with factual errors…and unmasks the deliberate hostile policy of incitement to Iranophobia.”
Ershadi accused Canada of genocide over the 215 bodies of indigenous children unearthed in May at one of Canada’s largest residential schools for native Canadians and in its policies of forced assimilation. She said the wider West has been remained silent.
Canada’s delegate at the UN assembly said Wednesdaythat Canada has established a Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Canadians were "horrified and ashamed" at how Canada had behaved and promised remedial action. A Canadian federal court in September upheld a 2016 ruling ordering the government to compensate indigenous children forced into foster care.
Jack Straw, ex-British foreign secretary, told Iran International Wednesday that Britain should pay £400 million owed Iran since 1971 and linked to Iran's detention of a dual national.
Straw said the only possible obstacle to paying the debt was potential United States sanctions, which threaten punitive action against any third party dealing with Iran’s financial sector. But Straw suggested this was unlikely given past US behavior in similar circumstances.
“When there was previously a Democrat [Party] government in power in Washington, and John Kerry was the secretary of state, he arranged for about $2 billion to be paid to the Iranian government – [money] the US owed - the money was put on a plane,” Straw said. “The United States are not going to make a fuss about us paying a debt, if necessary in a similar way.”
On the same day, in January 2016, that the US flew to Tehran $1.7 billion it owed Iran, the Iranian authorities released four Americans, including Jason Rezaian, an Iranian-American journalist arrested in July 2014. Washington also freed seven Iranians held over alleged sanctions violations.
Straw said he was convinced that “from time to time the Islamic Republic of Iran has engaged in what amounts to hostage taking” and that while he could not be certain, he assumed this was the case with Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe detained in Iran since 2016.
Straw has been a proponent of improving ties with Iran, arguing that the regime in Tehran is not the revolutionary government of 40 years ago and diplomacy can work to change its policies.
But the former foreign secretary insisted that, nonetheless, the money was owed: “If we pay, it will not create any further difficulties for Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and may very well ease her circumstances of release.”
International arbitration ruled in 2001 that London should repay money given by Iran for military hardware that was never delivered.
‘Complicated’ relations
Straw noted that Britain’s relationship with Iran was “complicated,” and had been so before the 1979 Revolution. While he said Britain had on occasions handled Zeghari-Ratcliffe’s case poorly – he cited Boris Johnson’s 2017 statement to a parliamentary committee that she was in Iran training journalists – the situation needed “very careful diplomacy” and that “shouting at them, or as some people have said, breaking off diplomatic relations, is going to get us absolutely nowhere.”
Straw said he shared the frustration of Richard Ratcliffe, who is in hospital for tests after a 21-day hunger strike outside the British foreign office in London to draw attention to the plight of his wife.
The issue of paying the £400 million ($540 million) debt is controversial in British politics, with Ratcliffe alleging his wife is forbidden from leaving Iran, effectively held ‘hostage,’ to pressure London to pay.
Taking ‘hostages’
While Straw has earlier argued that Britain should pay, others, including many within the ruling Conservative Party, oppose the move, arguing it would encourage Iran to take other hostages. An ex-detainee in Iran, theAustralian-British academic Kylie Moore-Gilbert, said Wednesday that the British government should repay the £400 million only in the form of “humanitarian aid.”
In a debate Tuesday in the British parliament Jeremy Hunt, a former Conservative foreign minister, said the UK should immediately pay “if necessary, by getting an RAF [British air force] plane to fly gold to Tehran.”
Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a project manager for Thomson Reuters Foundation, was arrested in 2016, convicted without a fair trial of working to overthrow the government and sentenced to five years jail. After being paroled early in 2020, she was charged with new offences and has been refused permission to leave the country. Other British citizens held in Iran are dual-nationals Anoosheh Ashoori, a businessman, and labor activist Mehran Raoof.